About the AuthorLucas Mearian

Wireless charging has been around for more than a quarter of a century, but only over the past decade did smartphone manufacturers begin offering it natively in their handsets.In 2012, Nokia was the first to adopt the Qi-based wireless charging in i…

It is also an acknowledgement that an ecosystem dominated by hardware manufacturers and telecom providers – each with a set of priorities and plans that doesn’t dovetail with Google’s – results in a myriad of devices that run the gamut of quality.

With that in mind, Google’s buyout of HTC’s engineering IP will enable it to create a pure Android play by marrying hardware and software in a move that could eventually reduce fragmentation in the Android ecosystem.

With the official launch of iOS 11 this week, Apple has introduced more PC-like capabilities to its mobile devices – especially the iPad – so workers can more often use them for daily tasks.

While that’s good news for companies focused on a mobile-first strategy, what could be an even greater boon for business is iOS’s native augmented reality (AR) play, via its ARKit SDK.

While Apple’s AR move may appear at first blush to be focused on consumers with animated emojis and masks, native AR toolkits open up a world of possibilities for business users and app developers, according to IDC analyst Bryan Bassett.

When you use PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Wallet or simply your credit card to make an online purchase, you the consumer, the ecommerce retailer and the banks behind the money exchange are using FinTech.When Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade or Fidelity In…

Apple announced on tuesday that iOS 11 will be available be available on Sept. 19. It has been in public beta since mid-summer.

Microsoft began releasing developer and beta builds of its EMM cloud service a few months ago, and said its Intune development team has been working to ensure that all of its mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM) tools will work seamlessly on iOS 11.

As expected, Apple’s new iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X will be able to be joined with a new wireless charging accessory based on the Qi standard – the most popular among three main industry specifications.

An Apple-designed charging pad, called AirPower, will be available in 2018; it will offer a large charging area that will allow up to three devices, including Apple Watch Series 3 and a new optional wireless charging case for AirPods, to power up simultaneously.

For decades, Apple tried to push into the enterprise market through the data center back door. In the 1990s, it rolled out its Apple Network Server, which quickly failed. In the early 2000s, it introduced its Xserve line – a data center server that lasted in various iterations through 2011, but never gained traction.

More recently, it has pinned its hopes on partnerships with leading software and service providers, hoping to capture more of the seemingly elusive, but lucrative, enterprise market.

In truth, Apple has already won.

To be certain, Microsoft still dominates the workplace desktop and laptop space. But Apple – which tomorrow will unveil new iPhones – recognizes who it is and who it isn’t. As Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

Collaboration software vendor Atlassian today unveiled a new enterprise product that provides text, voice, video, file sharing and other workplace collaboration tools that allow portions of group text threads to be set aside as sidebar tasks to be c…

Enterprise mobility management (EMM) software vendor MobileIron today announced its Apple release, aimed at the growing need for enterprises to provide IT managers with more robust management and security features for Macs.

While Windows and even Chrome-based laptops are already included in EMM consoles, macOS hardware has traditionally been treated as an outlier in the office, according to Nick McGuire, vice president of Enterprise Research at CCS Insight.

While MobileIron’s software suite already supported macOS for basic functions, including device configuration, millennials entering the workforce favor Apple’s line of laptops – driving the need for a unified endpoint management strategy that includes security and bulk licensing, according to Ojas Rege, MobileIron’s chief strategy officer.

SanDisk this week introduced the 400GB Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, which is not only the world’s highest capacity microSD card but one from which smartphones, tablets or laptops can run applications.

According to SanDisk, the micro SDcard achieves UHS Speed Class 1 – the best performance available for a microSD card and one that enables the speedy loading and running of apps.

“What this means for users is that, in theory, they will no longer be limited to only having apps on the main memory in the device,” said Jack Gold, principal analyst with J. Gold Associates. “Many users fill up that memory and now they have an option, if the device supports it, to greatly expand the amount of apps they can use on the device. This is pretty much equivalent to putting a USB drive on your computer and running apps from that.”

Global consultancy and business services firm Accenture unveiled a partnership with Apple designed to help businesses develop new applications and use cases for iPhones and iPads.

Accenture, which helps companies develop and deploy custom business apps, announced a new dedicated iOS practice within its Digital Studios in select locations around the world. Experts from Apple, including software and hardware developers, data architects and data scientists, will also be co-located in Accenture’s iOS practice offices.

A simple upgrade that Android smartphone users have enjoyed for years may finally be coming to the iPhone: wireless charging.

The technology would allow iPhone owners to simply lay their devices on a charging pad – something that’s also been embedded in furniture and vehicles – to recharge. Wireless charging hardware possibly related to the next iPhone has been shown in a series of photographs published by Chinese blog site Weibo.

While add-on, external iPhone covers have allowed wireless charging for some time , if the photos and a leaked document are genuine, the “iPhone 8” could contain the technology natively.

Microsoft is shutting down a work collaboration application it has been piloting over the past year, saying only that it learned a lot from the project and that the experience would help it with future products.In a blog post, Microsoft stated simpl…

Microsoft is shutting down a work collaboration application it has been piloting over the past year, saying only that it learned a lot from the project and that the experience would help it with future products.In a blog post, Microsoft stated simpl…

Among other things, IT managers will be able to perform a number of tasks including on-boarding employees; provisioning, auditing and tracking hardware; device wiping; and securing access to personalized enterprise app catalogs.

Slack has enabled integration with more than a dozen enterprise mobility management (EMM) platforms in order to offer security and policy management features to its four-year old, cloud-based messaging application.

The messaging platform provider worked with AppConfig, an open standards group, which allowed Slack to integrate through a set of APIs with 21 EMM vendors.

Slack said it also worked more closely with three EMM providers – VMware Airwatch, MobileIron, and Blackberry Good – “to ensure a smooth experience for our joint customers.

Android and iOS represent the lion’s share of the mobile operating system market, and while there’s inherent risk with the use of any mobile device in the enterprise, Android presents a much bigger target for malware attacks and, in turn, corporate …

After working for two years on an enterprise version of its smart glasses — Glass Enterprise Edition — Google says its head-mounted display is now “fully available” for business use.

There’s still no way to buy the device online, and the question remains whether businesses can benefit from using Glass as a collaboration and workflow tool.

Glass Project Lead Jay Kothari wrote in a blog post July 18 that Google Glass Enterprise Edition had evolved from a two-year limited program to being available now to more businesses through a network of development partners, such as EyeSucceed or Proceedix.

While consumer adoption of tablets is decreasing, business adoption is going the other way, powered by corporate fondness for Apple’s iPad Pro and 2-in-1 devices running Windows.

The number of consumer-owned tablets is expected to decline about 3.3% annually even as the number of business-owned tablets grows at a combined annual growth rate of 6.9% by 2022, according to Forrester Research.

Global mobile device usage is expected to reach more than 5.5 billion users by 2022, almost double the total number of users (2.8 billion) in 2008, according a Forrester report released last week.

Large-screen smartphones are contributing to the decline in tablet sales among consumers, while the diverse use cases for a 2-in-1s is driving that segment’s growth, Forrester stated.

App wrapping — the process of applying security policies to a mobile application such as email or a custom-built business app — can help protect corporate data without changing an app’s looks or functionality.

Once the technology is in place, app wrappers enable administrators to set policies that allow employees with corporate-owned or personal mobile devices to safely download an app, typically from an internal store.

As more companies deploy an over-arching enterprise mobility management (EMM) strategy, ensuring that sensitive corporate data isn’t compromised by employees’ mobile apps is paramount, because apps are increasingly targeted by cybercriminals as a window into backend systems.

The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project announced today the availability of Fabric 1.0, a collaboration tool for building blockchain distributed ledger business networks such as smart contract technology.

The Hyperledger project, a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology, said the Hyperledger Fabric framework can be a foundation for developing blockchain applications, products or customized business solutions

The difference between mobile management policies and technologies may come down to degrees of control, but deploying the wrong strategy can cost companies monetarily and kill employee morale.

When bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategies first emerged several years ago, many corporations made device wiping a key goal; after all, the ability to delete data from an employee’s smartphone or tablet appeared, on the surface, to be the best way to stop leaks or the misuse of sensitive information.

So, as employees, particularly senior-level workers, began demanding mobile devices for business use, IT often turned to either company-owned hardware or restrictive mobile device management (MDM) software.

Red Digital Cinema Camera Co. announced that it will be shipping what it described as the “world’s first holographic media machine,” a smartphone with 3D image capabilities.Red, known for its professional high-definition cameras used for filming mov…

Microsoft has consolidated its Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) suite of products under its Azure portal, combining its Intune mobile application management tools and its Azure Active Directory (AD) and Information Protection under a single cons…

Ten years ago today, the first iPhone arrived, sporting an all-new user interface built on a multi-touch screen and a virtual keyboard that soon replaced all that had come before for mobile devices.

Combined with internet access and, later, an online app store that offered enterprise applications, the iPhone allowed workers to treat their cell phone as a more convenient, portable computer. It also meant that companies had to figure out — quickly — how to manage all those new iPhones.

Steve Palmucci remembers suddenly seeing new iPhones show up at work, and he immediately worried about its lack of security and business capabilities. Nevertheless, employees seemed to love them, and made it clear they wanted to use them for work.

A San Francisco-based start-up is creating a line of Linux-based laptops and mobile devices designed with hardware and software to safeguard user privacy.

Purism this week announced general availability of its 13-in. and 15-in. Librem laptops, which it says can protect users against the types of cyberattacks that led to the recent Intel AMT exploits and WannaCry ransomware attacks.

The laptop and other hardware in development has been “meticulously designed chip by chip to work with free and open source software.”

“It’s really a completely overlooked area,” said Purism CEO Todd Weaver. “We also wanted to start with laptops because that was something we knew we’d be able to do easily and then later get into phones, routers, servers, and desktops as we expand.”

Editor’s note: June 21, 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of Computerworld’s founding. Join us for a look back at the earliest days of our publication.In 1967, Thursday mornings were special at the gray house at 355 Walnut St. in Newtonville, Mass. Th…